Esperance

It was official; we'd spent almost half of our entire trip around this great continent in Western Australia.  We'd started all the way back at Lake Argyle and Kununurra, the fruit bowl of the state, and in a fitting whip around the grocery store, we were ending it in the wheat basket of the Great Southern. I'd found Kununurra to be a strange kind of Frontier town, and its partner at the southern part of the state,  Esperance, proved to be the same.  Same, but different.

A few kilometres from Esperance are these beautiful beaches.

 Esperance is a weird town, sort of like an adolescent chicken with that beautiful cute fluff underscored by adult feathers and a gangly neck. Don't get me wrong, there is natural beauty surrounding this town rivalling anything West Australia had offered thus far, but the town itself is dated and there is a real gritty under current I haven't felt since I last walked down a main street in Broadbeach at night. Delinquent buildings stand next to flash new ones, a brilliant foreshore development is underway with beautiful parks overlooking the port, silos and container ships, and 1970s fibro shacks sit overlooking the water alongside enormous new holiday homes. Yep, Esperance is in the middle of a big change.

Outside the local surf club.

In an Uyshuis first we dove out of one of the caravan parks in town due to its exorbitant price and instead stayed at one which had had mixed bordering on negative reviews on Wikicamps. But we managed to find a spot up the back away from the packed in hordes and for the first time since Kununurra, locked up our bikes and anything else of value.

More magical coastline.

So while Esperance itself is really not that wonderful, its beaches and surrounding National Parks most definitely are. There is a 40 km coastal drive allowing you to take in some of the most beautiful beaches I've ever seen: white sand and that clear blue water-it's magnificent. 

Lucky Bay.

Lucky Bay: make sure you bring your sunglasses.

We drove out to Cape le Grand National Park to walk along what had apparently been voted the most beautiful beach in Australia at Lucky Bay. And it was. Squeaky white sand and blue water surrounded by coastal scrub and dramatic rocky peaks. Yep, it was pretty special.

We shopped, we washed everything we owned, we managed to keep all our possessions from the local delinquent crime ring (unlike some other campers we'd met there) and we were ready for the next momentous leg of our journey: the Nullabor.